Home Run: August 1996

For years, the Lady Rams—the
girls' high school softball team in Owasso, Oklahoma—played their
home games at a dusty city-owned ballpark with wooden bleachers and a
chain-link backstop. The boys' team, on the other hand, played its
games on the Owasso High campus, at a first-rate facility with lush
green grass, aluminum stands, and an electronic scoreboard. Ron
Randolph, whose daughter, Mimi, played catcher for the team in the
mid-1990s, thought the girls were getting a raw deal. When he and
several other parents complained to the school superintendent, they
were told that a task force would be created to look into the matter.
That never happened, but the Lady Rams, who took the state championship
in 1995, were treated to brand-new uniforms for the first time in five
years.

The uniforms were nice, but Randolph and the other parents wanted
more for their daughters. Girls' soccer had become increasingly popular
in Owasso, a small town just outside of Tulsa. So had volleyball. Yet
the district seemed to treat its female athletes as second- class
citizens. The boys got better equipment and better playing times for
their games. They had better access to medical and training facilities,
too. Randolph, who also has a son, said at the time, "If I pay $100
every year to this school in taxes, and $10 of it goes to athletics, I
think $5 ought to go to my boy and $5 ought to go to my girl. To me,
it's simple math."

In the winter of 1996, after much deliberation, Randolph, along with
10 other parents and their daughters, sued the Owasso Independent
School District for violating Title IX, which prohibits sex
discrimination in educational institutions that receive federal funds.
It was the first such complaint in the state of Oklahoma, and one of
only a handful of Title IX cases that had been brought at the
precollegiate level nationally.

The district denied the allegations and fought the suit. But less
than a year later, it settled the case with the parents. As part of the
agreement, the district agreed to build a new girls' softball stadium
and to provide girls' athletic teams with the same resources as the
boys'.

Today, the Lady Rams play on campus at a sparkling new $300,000
diamond, one of the best in the state of Oklahoma. Their former home,
in the city park, is overgrown with weeds. And even though Mimi
Randolph never got to play ball on the new field—she graduated
just before it opened and is now a sophomore at Northeast Louisiana
University—her father takes great satisfaction in having helped
change the face of girls' athletics in the Owasso schools. "We kicked
their butts," he says.

David Fisher, Owasso High's athletic director and Title IX
coordinator, says the school has one of the most equitable sports
programs in Oklahoma. "We're in good shape," he says. "We're thrilled
with all the changes."

For Ray Yasser and Samuel Schiller, the lawyers who represented the
Owasso parents and girls, Title IX law has become something of a
specialty. Even before the Owasso case was settled, a group of parents
in Tulsa-emboldened by the Owasso plaintiffs-hired the lawyers to file
a similar complaint. That district also chose to settle, and since then
Title IX lawsuits in Oklahoma have spread faster than a prairie
brushfire. Yasser and Schiller recently filed their 12th.

"We get calls all the time," Yasser says. "People go out to Owasso
and see the new field and say, 'Hey, why don't we have one as nice as
this?' " In all of the cases, he adds, "the districts start things off
by kicking and screaming, and then, eventually, they agree to make some
changes." Many other districts in Oklahoma have chosen to avoid
litigation by voluntarily transforming their athletic programs to
comply with Title IX guidelines. "We've helped turn Oklahoma into a
good place for girls to play sports," says Yasser, who teaches law at
the University of Tulsa.

Randolph never doubted that he and the other parents would prevail.
Not only did he have a spot on campus picked out for the new girls'
softball field, but he also wanted the stadium to be dedicated to the
seven girls named in the lawsuit, including, of course, his daughter,
Mimi. He hoped to place a bronze plaque at the facility with these
words on it: "To the girls who had the courage to fight for what they
believed." But when it came time to negotiate with the district, Yasser
urged Randolph not to press the matter.

"Ray said it wasn't worth fighting for," Randolph says. "But I just
hope the public doesn't forget how this happened and why it was
done."

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